


settling

by maybealis



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, Gen, I have no memory of writing this and I will never continue, Prequel, bilbo baggins isnt a hobbit, fae, so enjoy this as a oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:35:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24727585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybealis/pseuds/maybealis
Summary: A little drabble about Bilbo and his life before Gandalf came along.I just found this and I have no memory typing it up so I wont be continuing, but I still decided to post it!
Kudos: 3





	settling

Bilbo Baggins had always been in the Shire. Every hobbit knew him and his penchant for giving out small candies from his pockets. Every hobbit eagerly waited for the summer solstice, and the sugary sweet sorberts he made, always an assortment of rare fruits. Every hobbit had run his delivery of Old Toby to him, at least once or twice as a chore. Not that it was much of one. Listening to Bilbo Baggins tell his stories was a treat in and of itself!

He could wind tales with such detail and diction that it was hard to stop listening. Many stopped by while he was storytelling, even if it was there third or fourth or fifth time hearing the same one. Tutors often bring waddling toddlers and excited kids and academically inclined teens and the rare swaddled babe to learn some real history. 

And it was real! It was as real as can be, recalled with an, “I remember it like it happened yesterday,” even when it was set during the beginning of the Shire, the Dark Ages, even the Olde Times of Monarchical Rule.

Because Bilbo Baggins wasn't a hobbit. Yes, he looked like one, and acted like one, and just overall seemed like a normal 50 year old or so gentle-hobbit with a soft spot for children. But he really was there from the very first days. And he really did live through ages before that too. Hobbits never live much over 100 - the oldest recorded hobbit was 126. 

Bilbo Baggins was fae, and a trickster to boot. He had settled into the form of a hobbit when he found the huddled group of them all traveling through the mountains, and stuck that way. He was named as the brother of a small child without a clear guardian, and adopted the name Bilbo Baggins. They didn't question him helping them then, and in return, they let him settle into the shire without bothering him for his true name, passing the gratitude down to the next generation until no one even entertained the thought of Bilbo Baggins not being his real name.

And so he lived peacefully with every iteration of head Baggins next door, until the last - Bungo and Belladonna Baggins - died in the Cold Winter. They wrote the smial to be passed to Bilbo, and there he lived.

He continued to live there, smoking Old Toby, baking and gardening and knitting until one fateful morning, a tall gnarly wizard robed in gray was walking up the path to Bag End.


End file.
